MWC19 Day Two

Day two has brought some amazing sessions and so much more content to our attention. Overall, we’ve heard huge focus on putting the customer’s needs first, that tech will continue to develop and change yet the focus on customer experience is still constant. This helps to give us as a business validation on how we position ourselves, we are already so focused on the needs of the user as a business, so it’s exciting to see we’re heading in the right direction.

The 3 speakers from the keynote we attended today included Citi, Groupon and Niantic. It was interesting to hear their approach to industry topics ranging from 5G and UX, however, all companies had the customer’s needs as a common vein.

Citi: Presented by James Forese, President of Citi. He pondered if everyone is now a tech firm as all companies inevitably become a tech firm. He noted caution around creating a divide between the haves (those for whom tech delivers better access to services/ discounts/ personalisation) and the have nots (offline/ excluded/ de- valued customer experience). Highlighting that there is a social responsibility to drive inclusion and intelligently connect customers for accessibility and adoption- he called this ‘inclusive finance’- which we found an interesting concept. He then, lastly, highlighted the need to understand customers- something we are hugely passionate about at Mubaloo.

Groupon: Now, they have definitely worked hard to become the best at what they do! They explained how their ability to see the potential of smartphones as a disruptive device and their relentless commitment to UX powered them to become one of the top 3 retail companies in the US and top 2 in the UK. Their competitors who didn’t embrace mobile UX in the same way have vanished.

Niantic: Following the session we joined yesterday, the CEO John Hanke, offered further insight into their projects, with a strong focus on the role of 5G and Edge. They discussed the Neo Project that they’ve just launched, illustrating how the ability to reduce latency can deliver new experiences. This is real-time synchronous AR that makes use of 5G and Edge. Live actions are shared in real spaces, so latency has nowhere to hide. I’m going to go and see a live demo of this for myself tomorrow.

The conversations we’ve been lucky enough to listen to have been fantastic so far and it’s great to see the boat being steered toward the importance of user needs. Later today I will also be taking to the stage for my panel discussion on voice and its potential! We will have lots of exciting content to share with you all over the next coming days, make sure to keep an eye out.